This assembly of sleep-walkers awakened to life and became animated at
the entrance Rogelio, who, before taking his afternoon drive or walk,
was in the habit of showing himself for a moment at the meeting,
laughing at what took place there, but good-naturedly, with the
mischievousness of a spoiled child. He had nicknamed it, “The Idle
Club.” Candás, on account of his bald yellow skull, he called “Lain
Calvo,” and the smooth-shaven and gallant Señor de Febrero, Nuño Rasura.
The servants called them by these names among themselves. Even the
Señora de Pardiñas laughed in secret, although she pretended to be vexed
and would say to the boy:
“It is very wrong for you to turn them into ridicule, in that
way--those poor gentlemen who are all so fond of you!”
And they were indeed fond of him. The moment Rogelio appeared it was as
if a ray of warm, golden sunlight had entered a closed and darkened room
where furniture, hangings, paper, and pictures have all acquired the
faded hue imparted by the dust and the damp. All the old men loved the
boy; one of them remembered him when he was a child in arms, another had
been present at his first communion; this one had brought him toys when
he had the scarlet-fever; that other, a professional colleague and the
intimate friend of his father, became a child again when he thought of
the baptismal sweetmeats. If they had acted according to their feelings,
notwithstanding the black fringe that adorned Rogelio’s upper lip, they
would have showered kisses on him, and brought him caramels and
peanuts. For them he was always the little one, the boy. It was true
that by a curious illusion the worthy guests of Señora de Pardiñas were
disposed to regard the young as children and those of mature years as
young. They would say, for instance; “So Valdivieso is dead! Why, he was
in the prime of life, he was only a boy!” And it was necessary for the
malicious Asturian, putting his ear-trumpet, or his hand as a
substitute, to his ear, to interpose, “A boy indeed! a pretty sort of
children you are dreaming of, truly. Valdivieso was past fifty.” “He was
not so old as that, not so old as that!” “What do you mean? And the time
he was in his nurse’s arms and learning to walk, does that count for
nothing?”
Where Rogelio was concerned, they carried to an extreme this whim of
forgetting the passage of time, and turning a deaf ear to the striking
of the clock. Every additional year he spent in the study of the law,
was for them a fresh wonder; they could not fancy him a lawyer: they
would have had him still at school learning to read. Once, on his return
from a summer excursion to San Sebastián, Señor de Rojas had said to him
with the utmost good faith:
“What a fine time you must have had, eh? Running about and playing on
the beach all day, I suppose?”
And the boy answered without betraying any annoyance, but with a grimace
of mischievous drollery:
“Yes, indeed, splendid! I made holes in the sand, and built little
houses with it. I never enjoyed myself so much.”
In reality the good heart of the young man had grown attached to the
assemblage of worthy old oddities who frequented the house. This very
Señor de Rojas, for example, inspired him with a feeling of affectionate
respect, on account of the justness of his views, and his unquestioned
probity. If Themis should descend to this lower sphere, she might take
up her abode in the house of Señor Rojas and she would find there an
altar erected to her and her image (of wood, according to Candás). A
jealous interpreter of the law in its literal signification, Rojas
walked along the narrow path that lay before him, without turning to the
right hand or to the left, with head erect, and with a tranquil
conscience. Convinced of the exalted dignity of his position, he
complied with the requirements of social decorum at the expense of
incredible privations in his house, sympathized with and seconded in
this heroic conduct by his wife. In the exercise of his functions he was
influenced neither by considerations of politics nor of friendship.
Interests involving millions had been intrusted to him, without
awakening in him the faintest touch of cupidity, which is only the
instinct of conservation expressing itself in the guise of
acquisitiveness. For this reason the honorable name of Prudencio Rojas
was pronounced, sometimes with veneration, sometimes with the disguised
and caustic irony which vice employs to discredit virtue. The sarcastic
Don Nicanor called Rojas a “puppet of the law.” He said that everything
about him, mind and character alike, was wooden, neither seeing nor
wishing to see that this kind of men, if laws were perfect as far as it
is possible for human laws to be, might, by their firmness and integrity
in applying them, bring back the golden age.
Often, of an afternoon, especially if it was very cold, or if it snowed
or rained, Rogelio, instead of going out, would settle himself
comfortably in a corner of the broad sofa and listen to the drowsy chat
of the old people. Whenever he could he tried to turn the conversation
toward a subject for him full of interest, and one of which he never
tired--his native Galicia, which he had left when he was very young.
Almost all the party were either natives of that province or had spent
long periods of time there, filling positions in the court of Marineda,
and they expatiated on the benignity and salubrity of the climate, the
cheapness and the excellent quality of the food, the easy and cordial
manners of the people and the extraordinary beauty of the scenery.
“I cannot understand why our amiable friend, Doña Aurora, does not take
the child to see his native place,” Señor de Febrero would say, stroking
the cushion of his crutch.
“I am always intending to do so,” Señora Pardiñas would answer, “but it
is one of those plans that something always happens to interfere with.
The truth is, as you know, that up to the present there has always been
some difficulty or other in the way.”
“Say that you are very fond of your ease, _mater amabilis_,” her son
would interpose. “If it had depended upon you, you would have been a
tree that you might have taken root where you had happened to be
planted.”
“Just as I take you to San Sebastián I might have taken you to Galicia,
child, but it has not been possible to do so. Do you think I don’t often
long myself to see my native place again? We who were born there--it is
foolishness--but our dearest wish is to go back to the old spot, and our
love for it never changes.”
“And we who were not born there love it too,” added Don Nicanor Candás,
armed with his trumpet. “I would give my little finger now to spend a
year in Marineda; I would rather go there than to Oviedo or to Gijón.
“But with me,” continued Señora Pardiñas, “something always occurred to
prevent me from carrying out my plan, as if the witches had interfered
in the matter. Do you long to see your native place again, before you
die? Well, wear yourself out with waiting until you are bent double with
old age. You shall hear the causes of my never going back there”--and
she would count them upon her fingers: “First, the difficulties in the
way of doing so. You leave your family, your home, your possessions, to
wander about the world, with a young child who is always delicate--from
Oviedo to Saragossa, then, on account of the Regency, to Barcelona, then
to the Supreme Court here. I was always saying to Pardiñas, ‘Resign your
position, man, resign your position, and let us return to the old land
and not leave our bones in a foreign soil. With what we have, we have
more than enough to live, and our family is not so large as to be a
burden to us.’ But you know what my poor husband was, there is no need
for me to tell you.”
(A murmur of sympathy in the audience.)
“He believed it was his duty to continue at his post to the end. And
whenever duty was in question--at any rate, that was his idea, and it
was necessary to respect it. And afterward, his health became so
wretched----”
Here Señora Pardiñas’ voice grew slightly husky. She put her hand into
her pocket, and taking out her handkerchief blew her nose and then wiped
her eyes.
“So that,” she repeated, with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, “when
the time came--And afterward you know how I was with my sisters-in-law,
the law-suits and the difficulties I was involved in. I thought I should
never be able to extricate myself from them. From home my old friends
wrote to me, ‘Come back, come back; in a day you will accomplish more
here than you could in a year there. What would you have?’ I was afraid
of the undertaking. With my rheumatism, to think of shutting myself up
in one of those coaches that you couldn’t open a window in if it was to
save your life! And when, well or ill, things were at last settled and
the tangle of the will was straightened out, lo and behold, they put a
railroad direct to Marineda. But by that time I had lost the wish to go,
for to return home to find myself at variance with all my
connections----”
“Not with all of them, mamma; according to your own account there are
several who have taken our part.”
“Bah, how can I tell? In our place, child, it is hard to know who is for
and who is against you. On that point I have had terrible
disappointments. When you least expect it, your friends betray you and
drive the knife into you up to the handle. To speak the truth, there we
are not frank and loyal, so to say, like the old Castillians.”
“You talk like a book,” assented Señor de Candás, who never let slip an
opportunity of showing his claws. “The Galicians may have all the good
qualities you please, but so far as being tricky and slippery and
deceitful is concerned, there is no one who can beat them. Don’t trust
to the word of a Galician, for they have no faith; or, if they have, it
is Punic faith. What must the Galicians be when the gypsies don’t
venture to pass through their country lest they should be cheated by
them?”
“Take care how you insult the old land,” said Rogelio.
“Why, that is a well-known fact. No gypsy will go to Galicia. They are
trickier and more crafty than all the gypsies put together. And as for
going to law--Good Lord! They are born litigants. And they will be sure
to get the best of you; the most ignorant peasant there could wind you
around his finger.”
“That is a proof,” responded Señor de Febrero, “that we are an
intelligent race; you will not deny that?”
Señor de Candás, removing the silver tube from his ear so as not to find
himself in the necessity of replying to this observation, and, in order
to finish his argument to his own satisfaction, continued:
“And there are simpletons, who call the Galicians clever! I call them
crafty. If they were clever, they would not be always sunk in poverty,
eaten up with envy, without ever making an effort to be anything better
than beggars and grumblers. They are more given to complaining than any
people I know. They are always crying and groaning about something.”
The ivory skin of Señor de Febrero flushed a little, for he found it
impossible to accustom himself to the malignant rudeness of Lain Calvo.
“You are a little severe, Señor Don Nicanor,” he said, “remember that we
Galicians are in the majority here. How would you like it if I were to
repeat to you now the vulgar saying, ‘Asturian, vain, bad Christian,
insane’?”
“There are plenty of fools,” continued the imperturbable Crown
Solicitor, “who make a great show of surprise when they hear these
things, but every one knows them so well that no one thinks it necessary
to repeat them. The Galician, it is true, possesses some shrewdness,
especially when the question is how to cheat his neighbor, but for all
that he can neither cultivate any industry nor better his miserable
condition. There he is, contented with his crust of corn bread, a poor
creature, without clothes to his back, who never eats meat and who does
not drink a glass of wine even once in the year. With all his
reputation for smartness, he sometimes seems more stupid than the
Aragonese themselves. He is stingy and he would save an _ochavitu_ even
if he had to scrape it from his skin with a file; but you need not fear
that he will ever think of investing this _ochavo_, or that he will have
the energy to work in earnest in the hope of saving a dollar. Nothing of
the kind. All he asks is to be let go on undisturbed in his lazy ways.
See, for instance, the network of railroads they have, and what use do
they make of them? They would not move a finger to attract summer
visitors. None of that desire to please, that neatness of the people of
our country.”
“One must either choke this Don Nicanor or take no notice of what he
says,” exclaimed Nuño Rasura, furious, “for he won’t listen to argument.
Where is that network of railroads he talks about? A pretty network!
Full of holes. He wants everything to be done in a day; no one but God
can work miracles! Everything needs time and patience. Let Don Nicanor
take note of the growing importance of beautiful Vigo. Its cool climate,
its coasts and rivers are the admiration of the newspapers. And the
women--always excepting those present, but then my good friend is from
there, too. And the fish, the like of which is to be found nowhere else,
what do you say of that? My dear Doña Aurora, I have eaten neither
sardines nor soles since I left there. Just before the downfall of
O’Donnell, I remember we were taking baths in Marin, and they brought a
turbot to the door that----”
Here the old man went on spinning the thread of memory, and Rogelio,
leaning with his elbow on the sofa, his cheek in the palm of his hand,
listened absorbed. It seemed to him as if he
[Illustration: “Rogelio ... his cheek in the palm of his hand, listened
absorbed.”]
were listening to some family tradition. The apartment, and the people
in it assumed an air of friendly intimacy; the atmosphere, moral and
material, was genial; the world was as comfortable and easy for him as
the cushion against which he leaned. Each of the company was for him, if
not a father, at the least an uncle. Around him reigned sweet security;
and as in certain luxurious abodes embarrassment and privation betray
themselves, so in this modest dining-room was plainly visible domestic
comfort, the most perfect golden mediocrity that poet could dream or
philosopher desire. Harmony and moderation are always beautiful, and
Rogelio, without being able to define this beauty that surrounded him,
felt it and sheltered himself in it as the bird shelters itself among
the feathers of its nest. And while the blazing logs crackled in the
fireplace, and the sounds of the mortar came softened from the kitchen,
and the old men chatted and his mother knitted her stocking, the boy,
plunged in vague reverie, tried to picture to himself what that
beautiful country, that green Galicia, abounding in rivers, in flowers,
and in lovely girls was like.